


Not the kids...?

by FriendshipCastle



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale has one (1) feeling about a demon and then pretends he doesn't, Gen, Kid Fic, this is pointless character study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-28 13:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19813453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendshipCastle/pseuds/FriendshipCastle
Summary: Crowley likes kids. He's also fairly good with them. It takes Aziraphale a shockingly long amount of time to realize there is no ulterior motive behind this.AKA that line from the Ark scene in the TV show really stuck with me.(Edit 7/25/19: The wonderful madnessia also translated this whole thing into Russian! Amazing! You can read the translation here: https://ficbook.net/readfic/8444339)





	Not the kids...?

Aziraphale had an absent-minded fondness for humanity. He was tasked to love them, and he did, in a sincere but general sort of way. He’d chatted with a few humans over the years, befriended a few, gotten fairly intimate once or twice just out of curiosity, and then… Well. It was self-care to keep his distance, after a certain point.

He should have realized Crowley wasn’t just being a little shit about the ineffable Plan, back at the Ark. Aziraphale was bad at recognizing sarcasm and, after encountering a few stray Nephilim who were decidedly not interested in debating theology, but just wanted to say very rude things in mocking voices, he had decided that maybe all demons spoke in sarcasm. 

“Oh, no, not the _kids_ ,” Crowley had said, “surely not the kids…?” and Aziraphale had assumed it was another attempt to weasel a crack in his faith in the Plan. His faith was sterner stuff, though; he could firmly assert that this was good in the long run. He couldn’t look at Crowley while he said it.

Centuries later, after the death of that sweet young man who was God’s son, Aziraphale was passing along the Silk Road and saw Crowley squatting in the dust with a couple of laughing kids, finishing up a story that involved some elaborate arm-waving. Crowley grinned at them, his dark glasses twinkling. One of the children, a little girl with long, tangled hair, wrapped her arms around his skinny bicep and told him something solemnly. His head bent to listen to her. 

Aziraphale walked into the backside of a camel that had stopped without warning.

After apologizing profusely to the annoyed camel driver, Aziraphale turned back to see Crowley, cross-legged on a sun-warmed rock, starting to braid the little girl’s hair. He was whispering something to her that made a mischievous smile spread across her round face. His own hair was tightly bound up in a headscarf and the dust of the road was all over him, lightening every fold of his dark kurta and smeared on the soles of his feet. One foot hung over the edge of the rock, a gold anklet dangling from his bony ankle.

“Get out of the fucking road,” someone advised, but Aziraphale had a miracle to perform in Samarkand. He couldn’t spend all of his time thwarting Crowley, or watching him tempt children towards evil. It made sense, he supposed, to start them young. It seemed a bit awful, too. Children were so innocent, so pure and untouched by the cruelties of the world…

It wasn’t until decades later, in Shanghai, that Aziraphale saw Crowley again. A woman was trying to sell Crowley a length of embroidered silk—probably her last sale of the day, judging by the long shadows. Crowley was leaning back, arms crossed, entire body screaming disinterest. As the woman turned to pick up an alternative option, her pivot revealed the baby she had strapped to her back. 

Crowley’s posture completely changed. He leaned forward, saying something in rapid Mandarin. The woman, hunting through her piles, replied. The baby stared at the demon.

Crowley lowered his glasses and made a face. The baby’s eyes went wide, and it let out a sound of amazement so loud, Aziraphale could hear it over the thinning crowd of evening shoppers.

“Crowley!”

Crowley jerked and looked around, shoving his dark glasses back in place. “What? Oh, it’s you. _Nǐ zěnmeyàng_.”

Aziraphale jogged up, nodding politely to the silk seller. “ _Néih hóu_ , miss, pardon me. Crowley, what are you up to here?”

“ ‘Scuse, me, Su. I’ll think on it,” Crowley told the woman. “My best to Lie, and good luck with this little one. Seems like a troublemaker.”

She pursed her lips at him but gave a small bow and began folding away her trade goods. The movement jostled her baby, who still had not looked away from Crowley. The child gave a sharp grunt of annoyance. 

Crowley offered a smile to the baby and then looked at Aziraphale with almost the same fond grin. “Let me guess; you know a place to do lunch? Or, I guess, dinner; it’s getting late.”

“I just got in, actually. I’ve been in Xi’an until recently. I say, that baby is really staring at you.”

“Right?” Crowley chuckled. “The tiny ones think I’m fun to look at.” He started walking, hands tucked into his sash. “I do one weird thing with my tongue, bug my eyes out at them, and they can’t get enough. It’s great.”

“Yes, yes, very sweet. What’s your _angle_ , if you don’t mind me asking?”

“What?”

“Well, they’re very… young, Crowley. What exactly are you attempting to tempt them to do?”

Crowley’s head turned towards Aziraphale, those black lenses looking quite dark and empty. “I don’t exactly know what you’re asking me, Aziraphale. Or _why_.”

“It’s just some… concern,” Aziraphale said wretchedly. 

“Oh, so you’re concerned about the kids now, hm?”

“I have a great deal of affection for all of the Earth’s living—”

“You’re worried I’m going to corrupt some ankle-biters?”

A bracelet in the sun—a warm rock—dark hair becoming elaborately twisted through patience and time and skill. But while the image flashed through his mind, Aziraphale just said, “You’re a demon. You corrupt humanity. It’s your _job_. Can they even understand you when they’re that small?”

“They’re agents of chaos in their own right,” Crowley said. “They can tempt, sin, piss off in their own right, no big push needed from—” His mouth twisted suddenly, like he’d bitten something unpleasant.

“What?” Aziraphale asked.

“Forget that. Listen—don’t go spreading it around, would you?”

“Spreading what around?”

“The thing I said.”

“Childrens are agents of chaos?” Aziraphale snorted. “My dear, I’ve heard it said already. It’s not an original idea.”

Crowley was shaking his head. “You think just the children are agents of chaos? I meant humanity in general.”

“Well, of course; they have free will. As much as both our sides like to grumble about humans, we all know they have Choice. It’s what makes our work so important. Mine, I mean,” Aziraphale corrected hastily. “My work is important, yours is very wicked.”

“Never mind,” Crowley grumbled. “Here, there’s a place that does _tsjuw_ almost as good as in Beijing—want to try that?”

“You know, I found the most delightful spirits just outside of Jiuquan… It would be fascinating to compare them. Lead on.”

They ended up in England, eventually, dragged together more and more as time went on. The kingdoms of the world were exciting to travel for a time, but Aziraphale started to feel the pull to put down roots. Six thousand years of wandering about for miracle-performing was enough. Some of the newly-assigned angels who were working on Earth could start pulling their weight; Aziraphale was going to set up shop. Seniority meant he could start picking and choosing the miracles he performed in-person. He could store his book collection—maybe even grow it!

Of course, Aziraphale was never able to do indulgence in moderation. The little bookshop grew packed with books. It became a hub, an urban legend, a fixture of the community. Originally, A. Z. Fell had taken a shabby shop on the edge of a bad neighborhood, but the only constant on Earth was Change; now his shop was in the middle of a very desirable location. It was close to several daycares and a university and a lot of young, adorable humans who were parents to even younger, even more adorable humans were curious about this bookstore that had been there for over a hundred years.

Crowley, of course, was vastly amused.

“Put in chairs,” he advised, grinning. He had a serious mustache and had decided that chest hair was part of his new style; Aziraphale was having trouble looking at him head-on. “Make it a combo bookstore and cafe. You’re guaranteed to never sell a thing.”

“I don’t want them spilling on my books!” Aziraphale gasped. “And what if this new generation of hippie types gets into smoking over my books, too?”

“Then don’t put the good ones out.”

“But they’re _beautiful_! They deserve to be, to be looked at! Read, maybe, if you have clean hands, but definitely looked at.”

Crowley rolled his eyes (Aziraphale only knew he did this because his entire head moved as well). “You’re well out of the upstairs, angel—you have been for thousands of years—but you still haven’t realized that you can’t keep things clean if you’re going to interact with humanity.”

“But I _can_ clean it all up.”

“Sure. After the fact.”

Aziraphale pouted. “I’m closing up now. Isn’t there somewhere you ought to be?”

“Nah.”

Aziraphale pouted harder.

“Excuse me?”

Both the angel and the demon turned to look at the young woman bouncing in place, the child on her hip starting to fuss. He had a fistful of her waist-length hair and was hauling on it. His mother was holding out a picture book in her free hand, which wasn’t really free—there was a massive diaper bag hanging off of the crook of her elbow. The dark circles under her eyes weren’t totally hidden by the hastily-applied makeup.

“What is it, my dear girl?” Aziraphale asked, suddenly oozing a grandfatherly air. Crowley turned away and adjusted his sunglasses, hiding a snort of laughter. Aziraphale ignored him.

“Ah, Mr. Fell? I’d like to buy—sorry, he didn’t take his afternoon nap, we’ll be out in a tick.” She offered the picture book.

“And what’s the young man’s name?” Aziraphale made no move to take the book, but rested his elbows on the counter and propped his chin in his hands.

The woman set the book by Aziraphale’s elbow (he ignored it) and readjusted her grip on the wriggling baby. “Ben. After his grandda.”

“A fine name! Very strong! Biblical, yes? Benjamin?”

“Yeah. Um.” She was attempting to get a hand in her purse, but it was small and slung across her body, and the boy was kicking in earnest now, starting to wail. The diaper bag swung dangerously.

“Oh my,” Aziraphale said, leaning back.

“Want me to take him?” Crowley said, sounding a little annoyed. He held out both hands, fingers curled but palms open to receive.

In a breathless silence, as the child sucked in air to start howling, the woman and Aziraphale both stared at him.

“What? I’ve held a baby before. Lots. Just a moment, yeah?”

“S-sure, that’d be a help.” The woman tipped the boy off her shoulder with a practiced shrug and passed him, cautiously, into Crowley’s long, thin arms. The baby—Ben—struggled but then got a hold of the lapel of Crowley’s jacket. He shut up in sheer surprise at the leathery texture. Thumb crammed in his mouth, he gazed up with watery eyes. 

Aziraphale was so astonished, he made his first sale in three decades and parted with a bright copy of _Brown Bear, Brown Bear_ that had been signed by Eric Carle a few years ago, in 1972. Crowley murmured very quietly to the child during the transaction, little sibilant sounds, then handed him back to his relieved mother with a nod. He waved to the boy as they left and the boy, hand once again gripping his mother’s hair, waved back. 

When the bell over the door clanged at their exit, it jarred the ‘OPEN’ sign hard enough that the card flipped over to ‘CLOSED.’

“Crowley!”

“What?”

“What on Earth was that?”

Crowley looked around a bit theatrically, wearing a self-satisfied grin. “What was what?”

“You’re good with babies?”

“Oh, I suppose,” Crowley said with exaggerated modesty. “Good with them until they’re about eight, usually. They’re best when it’s hard to understand what they’re trying to tell you. Makes it more exciting to figure out what they want.”

“Do you… Crowley, do you like children?”

Crowley let his head loll on his neck, aiming his blank sunglasses at Aziraphale. “I recall, once, telling you how much I appreciate a good agent of chaos.”

“That was _adorable_ ,” Aziraphale said accusingly. He waved a hand at the shop door, the woman who had just left, her son. “That wasn’t you trying to, to exert your wiles on an innocent! That was absolutely _precious_.”

Crowley leaned over and grabbed Aziraphale by the lapels, half-dragging him onto the counter. They were nose to nose and Aziraphale could see his own scandalized expression reflected in Crowley’s lenses. “Shut up, angel,” he said through gritted teeth. “That was nothing. That was a moment. That kid’s going to scream the whole way home and she’s going to drop your book in a _puddle_. It hasn’t rained all week but there’s going to be a puddle, just for your book. _Don’t look at me like that_.”

Aziraphale was suppressing a smile now. He knew he wasn't suppressing it well; it was a big smile.

Crowley shoved him back over the counter in disgust. “You’ve closed up. I’ll get out.”

“Crowley?”

The demon didn’t stop walking towards the door, but his stride turned into a saunter. He looked over his shoulder.

“You and little Ben were very cute.”

Crowley slammed the bookshop door hard enough that the bell popped off and landed, smoking faintly, on the floor. Aziraphale wandered over and picked it up, pressing it back into its correct bell shape, and rehung it in its place. He locked the door, pulled down all the shades, and was still smiling when he went to his back room and started the kettle for cocoa.

**Author's Note:**

> I like that Crowley presents as female during some points in history, so I added some fluidity in the flashback to the Silk Road and India—a kurta is a slit-sided long shirt that is worn by men and women.
> 
>  _Nǐ zěnmeyàng_ means "What's up?" or "How are you doing?" in Mandarin, while _Néih hóu_ is "Hello" in Cantonese (at least, according to the Google I did). I decided Aziraphale and Crowley spent time in different regions of China and picked up different dialects as a result. Also, _tsjuw_ is the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 酒 (jiǔ), which is just Chinese for booze (which was made from fermented millet).
> 
> (Edit 7/25/19: The wonderful madnessia also translated this whole fic into Russian! I'm so honored and excited; languages are some of my favorite things to explore and play with when I write and now I have a whole fic that someone liked enough to translate into another language. And so quickly! I'm profoundly impressed. You can read madnessia's translation here: https://ficbook.net/readfic/8444339)


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